As is well-known, automation is becoming increasingly prevalent in manufacturing. In the aircraft industry, for example, the trend is to automate as many manufacturing operations as possible in conjunction with producing commercial aircraft.
The wiring systems of commercial aircraft usually involve the use of large numbers of wire harnesses. Such harnesses are typically or bound together by hand. This is extremely labor intensive, and significant cost savings could be achieved if such process were automated.
Accordingly, The Boeing Company, who is the assignee of the present invention, has been involved in developing an automated system for producing wire harnesses for Boeing aircraft. A portion of the system presently under development is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,803,778, which was identified above.
Obviously, large numbers of wires are involved in producing the various harnesses that Boeing requires. If the harnesses are to be assembled by an automated system, then in order to operate efficiently, virtually all aspects of handling the individual wire segments that go into a particular harness must be automated, from the time each segment is drawn from a bulk storage spool and cut to length, until the segment is subsequently installed as part of a harness. In addition to developing machinery that can handle segments during the harness assembly process, there is a related requirement to have wire-handling machinery that can move coils or individual segments of wire from one assembly station to another, or to automatically store segments until needed. For this reason, there is a need to have well-designed recyclable wire reel cartridges that are essentially interchangeable and suitable for use in conjunction with robotic arms.
It has been estimated that the system disclosed in the '778 patent will require a recyclable wire reel for each wire segment that is to be processed into a harness. Certain known attempts to produce recyclable wire reels are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,727,858; 4,685,636; and 4,715,549. The present invention is a new type of reel which, it is believed, has advantages over and above the reels disclosed in these patents or what is otherwise known about the prior art.